jonnybaker

the power of self acceptance - another TED talk from harry

harry has another TED talk up - this time he was invited to take part in TED@StateStreet in london. on the power of self acceptance (and a little more wholesome than the don't flop battle!). i particularly like the line in 22 about the bankers being the robbers in a room presumably with a lot of people working in finance...

jen

i rather like this portrait i took of jen on croyde beach at christmas!

exposed - exhibition in ealing from alex

one of the member's of the ealing photography group has a solo show at the gallery in for art's sake ealing for a fortnight starting this weekend which means the group will have two shows running in ealing at the same time again! details are here

don't flop latest battle with harry - [insults vs word play?!]

harry's latest don't flop battle is now online...

[update: sorry i should have put a health warning on this. do not watch with your kids - this is not a child friendly dinosaur poem! rap battles are well... battles but don't take it all too seriously. the backdrop to this is that a rapper took on his english teacher and don't flop ended up inviting poets who bring word play and trickery to compete with rappers with their insults and rhymes... and yes i wasn't posting this as a worship trick!]

wake up [2] wealth: having it all and wanting more

the current situation of the wealthy elite in our country and indeed even more so in our world is disgusting and something has got to change. at times i have felt physically sick when i have read of the behaviour of the rich in the wake of the 2008 crash in their own sector and their attitude to the poor. i fear if it is not legislated to change by governments in countries like the uk and usa then it is like a pressure cooker that is going to explode at some point. 

today oxfam have published a report wealth: having it all and wanting more. this really is saying the same as their october report even it up: time to end extreme inequality, the statistics are mind boggling. the richest 1% own half of the global wealth. their share keeps increasing in the wake of continued governmental belief and practice in deregulation. supposedly deregulation leads to creativity and fredom for enterprise. but it's stark glaringly obvious that deregulation has created a culture of greed and self interest. 

we owe it to ourselves to get informed about this. i don't know if it's just me but it seems like there is a rising anger and awareness. even though it's extremely difficult to fuly grasp the workings of (the god of) the market i have recently been helped to understand it by a few things...

supercrash - a graphic novel by darryl cunningham. this is a book yes in pictures that i wholeheartedly recommend.

capital by piketty - last year an economist who did some counting that caught bthe world's attention as it highlighted how inequality was rising but hugely problematic. it's rather a large book sadly so here's a four paragraph summary!

the new economics foundation are an amazing think tank - follow their work. think tanks have been extremely important for the rise of neoliberal capitalism. so it's a relief to find one or two who are doing the thinking on economics out of a different imagination. this paper is very important because it makes the case that inequality does not lead to flourishing in the economy. it's obvious it doesn't lead to flourishing in life as a whole!!!

ann pettifor's work is genuinely brilliant, a prophet i would say - she now works for another think tank - policy research in macro economics (PRIME) - keep an eye on their work.

the book to get your blood boiling but also highlighting so many shocking things about our society in relation to power, money, politics and privilege is the establishment by owen jones - totally brilliant. i can't recommend it enough. i have two chapters to go and will review it then. 

i also try and read most things george monbiot writes as he seems to have a pretty good sense of things.

there are also growing numbers of documentaries of the superrich on their yachts and islands and castles and palaces and private estates living in their own bubble. honestly sometimes it's like watching a james bond villain - epstein and his island for example - just hideous. is it going to get to the stage where they build their own armies to defend their stuff from the rest of the world???!!! that seems to be the way it's heading.

what can be done? a lot actually! it's not hard to work out that you don't have to run society this way. we need to manage the financial sector to address it's immoral greed and that needs international as well as national involvement. it also requires separating the vested interests of the rich from government - it's all too cosy cosy. we need jobs for all and invest that way including reducing inequality. we need fair taxation that hugely shifts inequality and invests taxes in arts, education, welfare. simple! who in politics has the courage to do it? oxfam and others all have theior own take but essentially it's in this kind of direction. i don't hear a lot from the main parties. they seem afraid. who is going to rise up and have the courage to make a better society? 

artisan exhibition in ealing

the ealing photography group i am part of have an exhibition in artisan coffee shop on ealing broadway which runs for three months. the photos are in four panels and each month a new set of people from the group exhibit. i'll have a couple of photos in march/april. go grab a coffee and take a look...

II, V, | I [improv and perfect cadence]

was quite a magical grace on saturday night especially as it was chris read's debut curating. the evening was on the theme of ruah - the creative breath of god and a double bass was improvised all night to symbolise this. then there were a series of cards with a sequence of numbers on which represented a mood/feeling as interpreted by chris. the numbers are chord sequences - don't worry about it if that makes no sense. grace is II, V, | I - perfect cadence. people could choose and/or were given a range of cards and on the back expressed hopes, dreams prayers for the year gone by and the one ahead. these were then randomly lined up with a regular return to grace and  the sequence of cards improvised as a musical flow carrying those hopes and prayers by chris on guitar and the double bass. all rounded off with a new flock tune with chris joined by sam on cello which was also quite amazing in the space... steve has a ropey video here.

i am making the improvised cards a worship trick - 55 in series 4

finding stillness

ian adams has a ten minute or so reflection on finding stillness on the nomad podcast...

wake up!

last night i watched charlie brooker's screen wipe 2014. it's a month by month roll through the year with him taking pops at virtually everybody in his perceptive and sarcastic fashion. i laughed out loud several times. part of me wishes he would rant less and shift the tone as i think he has things to say to a much wider audience but i like it none the less... but in the middle of it was an extraordinary five minutes by the wonderful adam curtis who is the most brilliant documentary maker, at least when it comes to taking a helicopter view of the narratives in the wider culture. turns out that that segment is on youtube so take five minutes of your life and watch it.

i've called the post wake up because it's one of a number of things that i have read or watched recently that have reminded me of how much things need to change and i need to wake up and (together with others) imagine and work towards a different kind of world and society than the one we have now...

first grace of 2015 this saturday - improvisation

this saturday chris read is curating grace for the first time - ruah. i'm really looking forward to what promises to be a creative evening with live improvisation and reflective space for prayer - a perfect way to kick of a new year... come along if you are anywhere nearby!

radical imagination: prefiguring the world that is not yet here

i appreciate that this blog is currently something of a slow burn, such is my busy life! but a massive thank you to those of you who still patiently hop onto the flow whether via a feed, twitter, facebook or the occasional digital drop in. i hope as you look back on 2014 you have some consoling thoughts and find hope for the year ahead even if it is against the odds.

a while back i posted a tale of two bookshops in which purchased four books at the ICA bookshop. i have enthused about two of them so far - feral (my book of the year i think and george monbiot is the person i would most like to be put in charge of running the country), and exploring everything.

well the third of the four is radical imagination. i bought this because i can't resist anything about imagination - one of the most underrated and undervalued aspects of what it is to be human. but i didn't read the small print - it turns out it's a book about social research amongst activist movements. but i ended up loving it and learning a load. there is a web site related to it that aims to study, broadcast and celebrate the intelligence, passion and creativity of social movements. of course the church is a social movement (though of course it is curiously part of the establishment in places too!). this book has lots to say to those of us interested in the transformation of society especially seeking to imagine a different kind of society and world that does not have to be the way it is now, and as part of that those of us seeking to effect change in and through following in the way of jesus christ (one heck of an activist!).

the single idea that has stuck with me the most and anyone who knows me well will have been subjected to it over a meal conversation or a work discussion is prefigurative research. what the authors mean by this is to design the present on the basis of an imagined future that is not already here. in their case they are based in universities and don't like the way the academic world is configured so they imagine how the university might be and design research on the basis of that - i.e. it prefigures it rather than settling for the current status quo. brilliant eh? 

so on the first day of the year what kind of world, society, economy, neighbourhood, community, business, or church do you imagine might be possible? and how can you live in the present in a way that flows from that radical imagination? i feel challenged about the training of pioneers i lead at cms - have we done enough imaginative work of what is possible out of which to design our training? we do love imagination but i am stirred up to do some more. i am sick the culture of greed in the wider powers that be and the systematic grinding down of the poor and it seems to me that here more than anywhere we need this radical kind of approach.

i also like the positive and yet honest way that haven and khasnabish talk about social movements. it's interesting to overlay this with whatever networks or movements yoiu have been or are part of such as transition towns, emerging church, pioineering mission or whatever. here's a few notes and quotes i jotted down for myself when i read it...

Take social movements seriously as fecund ecologies ripe with possibility

Movements can be alternative spaces of social reproduction, places where individuals and communities can re-create themselves and find support for doing so.

Social movements are driven by and co-create the radical imagination: shared landscapes of possibility and contestation that confront and contradict the reigning imaginaries of capital and power.... It is not something individuals have but is something networks, groups, movements do. It emerges from and guides collective doing...

Hope is important to balance struggle - fun, joy, celebration, acceptance, humour...

it reminded me just how important communities are in which conversation is happening about the world and change. three things i do that this has helped me continue to value are meet with friends over a meal most weeks one evening to linger at the table, talk, share life, dream and pray; a couple of times a year through the team i work with host a 24 hour dreaming space in which we go away and take on a theme or idea and explore it; and connect/network with others who share similar vision and passion around transformation. this is all part i guess of building infrastructures of dissent as they are described on the web site (i love that phrase - reminds me of the great mission thinker john taylor's notion of cells of dissent).

the book is also a reminder of how valuable research is. they see research as part of how movements are carried forward and propose the idea of a solidarity research strategy that opens up a commions for the imagination through community and participation. so their research involves facilitating focus groups, hosting events, and even a radical imagination festival. one of the issues for activists and i suspect a lot of us in many walks of life is that you get bogged down in the day to day task. one thing research does is pull people together to reflect and talk about what is going on with others. it opens time and spaces in a cycle of imagination, strategy and tactics. the kinds of questions researchers facilitate conversation about are 

• what events or ideas brought you to pioneering work and (how) have your thoughts changed through your involvement?
• what is the role of the imagination in your movement and your own pioneering?
• what would it mean to win? What’s your vision of a better society? Do these visions matter to you and your movement?
• what are the barriers to the radical imagination that you face?

i have changed politics to pioneering in the questions above to see how it crosses over into mission. i should have said that the project is grounded in the particular - in hamilton canada - so it's not just an abstract set of ideas. it really is involved in a movement for change.

so go prefigure! hopeful new year :)